ApeCoin (APE)

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Historical price evolution of ApeCoin

Daily historical data. Updated automatically.

The origin of ApeCoin dates back to April 2021, when Yuga Labs launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, a series of 10,000 NFTs on Ethereum that functioned as membership of an exclusive digital community. This collection became the foundation upon which the entire ApeCoin ecosystem would subsequently be built.

On 17th March 2022, the ApeCoin DAO launched APE as an ERC-20 token independent of Yuga Labs, establishing a fixed maximum supply of 1,000 million tokens. In the initial distribution, 15% was delivered via airdrop to holders of BAYC, MAYC and BAKC NFTs, whilst 47% remained reserved in the DAO treasury for ecosystem development. That same month, Yuga Labs raised $450 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, reaching a valuation of $4,000 million.

In April 2022, the Otherdeeds sale took place, offering 55,000 virtual plots of the Otherside metaverse at a price of 305 APE each. The high demand collapsed the Ethereum network, generating $157 million in gas fees, with a total fundraising exceeding $320 million. However, the project soon faced regulatory challenges when in October 2022 the SEC opened an investigation into Yuga Labs for the possible issuance of unregistered securities through BAYC NFTs and the distribution of APE. In December of the same year, a class action lawsuit was filed alleging that BAYC NFTs constituted unregistered securities promoted through undisclosed celebrity endorsements.

In January 2024, the ApeCoin DAO voted to build ApeChain, a layer 3 blockchain on Arbitrum Orbit with APE as the native gas token. The official launch of ApeChain occurred on 20th October 2024, driving APE's price up more than 100% in one week. Regulatory issues began to resolve in March 2025, when the SEC closed its investigation confirming that BAYC and ApeCoin did not constitute securities under US legislation.

A significant structural change occurred in June 2025 with the approval of AIP-596 by 99.66% of voters, which dissolved the ApeCoin DAO and transferred all its assets—including a treasury of $168 million—to ApeCo, a new entity administered directly by Yuga Labs. On 4th October 2025, a federal judge in California declared that BAYC NFTs were not securities and dismissed the class action lawsuit initiated in 2022. Finally, in April 2026, Yuga Labs appointed Michael Figge as new CEO, which drove APE with a rise of 108% in the following month, fuelled by expectations of the Ape Accelerator programme scheduled for the third quarter of 2026.

ApeCoin (APE) is an ERC-20 token built on the Ethereum blockchain with a fixed maximum supply of 1,000 million units. Unlike mineable cryptocurrencies, APE is not generated through mining: its entire supply was established from launch and is distributed following a predetermined vesting schedule amongst different beneficiaries, including the ApeCoin DAO, Yuga Labs, founders and project contributors. The token was created by the ApeCoin DAO, an entity that, whilst independent from Yuga Labs, maintains strategic alignment with this company's ecosystem.

APE's functionality is structured around three main utilities. First, it acts as a governance token, allowing its holders to vote on improvement proposals called AIPs (ApeCoin Improvement Proposals) that define the protocol's evolution. Second, it functions as the native utility token of ApeChain, a layer 3 blockchain built on Arbitrum Orbit that launched in October 2024, where APE operates as the gas token required for transactions. Third, it provides exclusive access to special events, merchandise launches and experiences within the Otherside metaverse. However, the decentralised governance model experienced a significant change following the approval of AIP-596 in June 2025, when it was replaced by ApeCo, a centralised entity under Yuga Labs' control that assumed administration of the treasury and definition of ecosystem priorities.

Data verified against external sources. Some values may have changed since the last update.